I didn’t even believe in ghosts, not really. But I did believe in Wink.
“I got scared then, and lost my footing,” she said, still using her soft, sleepy voice. “I stumbled, and when I stood up again he was gone and the music room was empty. There is a ghost here, Midnight. But he didn’t have anything to do with Roman.”
The owl hooted. The branches scratched. The sounds scurried. The room smelled like night and dirt and neglect.
Wink leaned over and put her mouth on mine. I dropped the flashlight, clunk, creak. Her red hair fell over my ears and neck and shoulders.
She smelled like cinnamon, and her lips tasted like dust.
I didn’t think about the man who had died in this room.
Or the unforgivable thing that Autumn had done.
Or what I was about to do to a girl I’d once loved.
I just thought about Wink.
She pulled away. Stood up, smoothed her acorn skirt. Her hair was tangled and beautiful and red, red, red in the flashlight’s beam. “You can do this,” she said. “You’re Thief. You’re the hero.”
I nodded.
I nodded even though this didn’t feel heroic.
It just felt wrong.
Wink left. Into the woods to wait.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Poppy arrived.
I WALKED OUT my front door at eleven, boldly, with a swagger, my parents were gone anyway, off to rub elbows in Chicago with other doctors at some boring convention, I could just picture them in a long carpeted room, expensive furnishings and chandeliers, looking smug and overly educated and really fucking proud of themselves.
I ran away once, after Grandpa died. I went to his cabin up on Three Death Jack Mountain and stayed there for two days, not giving a thought to my parents or anyone else. It was beautiful and quiet, so quiet. The cabin was kind of run-down by then, but I did what I could to fix it up and I was having the time of my life, catching fish and not talking to anyone, when Mom and Dad finally found me. They were panicked and angry, they just couldn’t understand why I’d run off, why I’d want to live in some rat-hole cabin instead of our nice house in town, they gave me everything I wanted, hadn’t they given me everything I’d ever wanted?
They burned Anton Harvey’s cabin to the ground. They said it was falling apart and dangerous, but I knew. I knew why they really did it.
I took the cobblestone street to the cemetery, then down the path, into the woods. I wasn’t scared of this part, I’d done it enough times. Owls hooting and things rustling around in dead leaves and the wind tickling my neck like the night was letting out its breath. But my sense of direction was far above average, and besides, what in the forest could possibly be scarier than me?
The Roman Luck house.
That was scarier, true, true, I hated that place, oh, how I hated it, but it was just one night, one quick night, close your eyes and think of England.
I HEARD THE Wolf before I saw her. She strolled into the clearing, kicking up dead leaves, chin up, back straight, vain as the Raven Queen.
I hid in the trees. I wasn’t afraid of the dark. I was only afraid of the Roman Luck house. I didn’t want to leave Midnight in there alone, even if he was the Hero.
I think he believed me, about the unforgivables.
POPPY STOOD IN the Roman Luck doorway, up on her tiptoes, trying to look over my shoulder.
“Wink isn’t here yet,” I said. “We still have ten or fifteen minutes.”
She put her hands on the waist of her black skirt, right where it met her tight black T-shirt. I stepped back to let her enter, but she didn’t move from the doorway.
“Are you still afraid of this place, Poppy?”
She was quiet. Poppy, without a comeback.
“Why did you choose it for the prank, then? Why here, if it scares you as much as Wink?”
Poppy shook herself, so quick I almost missed it. She cocked her head, eyes hooded, nose in air. “I chose this place because it’s isolated. I’m not afraid. This is just a stupid, dirty old house that smells like death. I don’t believe in ghosts and even if I did, I wouldn’t care if I saw one and I wouldn’t be afraid.”
She tossed her blond hair and took a step. Then another. She was in.
She laughed.
Poppy held out her arms in the Roman Luck hallway, wide. She twirled around in a circle, the floor creaking beneath her. “Come and haunt me, ghosts. I’m right here. Come on. Show me you’re real. Show me what you can do.”